In any business, customer feedback and customer satisfaction are key performance indicators for successfully running the business. There are a few techniques that can measure customer feedback on your business/services/products. Let's discuss the pros and cons of each scoring system so that we can choose the better one.

1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

The goal of any CSAT is to measure the level of customer satisfaction on a company's product or service. This can be achieved by asking customers a set of questions. For example:

(Q) How would you describe your overall satisfaction with our IT support?

1) Very satisfied

2) Somewhat satisfied

3) Neither satisfied or dissatisfied

4) Somewhat dissatisfied

5) Very dissatisfied

Answers are measured as a percentage between 0-100 per cent. A high percentage indicates high satisfaction.

The Pros:

CSAT can be determined through customized surveys. It helps to focus on finding the best way to meet a customer’s needs.

The Cons:

It is the weakest predictor of the future behavior of your business, and a poor indicator of any type of loyalty.

2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is a more efficient way to discover a customer's willingness to recommend or promote your services or products to others.

Detractors - Detractors are customers who are unsatisfied with your company

Neutral/passive - Passives are customers who are satisfied, but lack any enthusiasm or loyalty; passives could easily switch to a competitor

Pros: NPS only requires a customer to respond to a single question which makes it easy to complete and more likely that the customer will do so.

Cons: There’s no scientific evidence that the “likelihood to recommend” is a better predictor of business growth when compared to other customer-loyalty questions like overall satisfaction, likelihood to purchase again, etc.

3. Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS)

CSS normally has 5 to 10 questions related to customer experience, satisfaction, and service delivery. The simple objective is to measure how happy a customer is about your product/service. Surveys usually use a rating scale of 1 to 10, and are carefully customized to capture what’s essential to a specific product or company. Various CSS use different methodologies, rating scales, and formats. Therefore, it is important that you employ a market research expert to design and implement your CSS for you.

4. Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES takes a different angle when compared with the other measurement tools. The customer is asked how much effort he put into a certain interaction with the company. The scale varies from very low effort to very high effort. CES measurement is limited to service.

By comparing the different measurements, we can conclude that each has its own applicability, and limitations. These measurements could stand on their own as a measurement tool for certain occasions, but can also complement each other.